Evaluation-Frances

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real products?

• camerawork
• sound
• mise en scene
• editing/post production
• use of genre conventions
• narrative organisation and the short film format
• characterisation
• themes and issues

Camerawork:

CU shot of the character from 'Guilty'

Over the shoulder LS of male character in 'Guilty'

The camera work normally seen in short films are usually lots of close ups, long shots and two shots. Depending on what the genre of the short film is, hand held camera are also a popular type of camera work to see. In the short film 'Guilty'  it features many POV shots and the technique of an hand held camera is also used regularly. These techniques are used as this is a thriller therefore, these types of camera work fit nicely in with the typical conventions of a thriller film. Lots of  MS and ECU are used in the short film 'Guilty' which really helps the audience in understanding and also feeling the characters emotions as they feel them. It also makes it clear what emotions the viewer is intended to feel. Different camera angles can communicate different meanings to the audience whether it is power, meaning or empathy. In the short film 'Guilty' the meanings behind the may high angle camera shots suggest that the protagonist is being watched by someone or something therefore this creates an enigmatic code as the audience want to know who he's being watched by.

ECU of Claire holding bay scan

Claire and Wesley holding baby scan

Our short film 'Delusion' uses lots of different camera angles and movements to create a variety of meanings and ideas throughout the film. When Claire and Wesley are shown standing outside the hospital through a low angle camera shot, it is unclear to the viewer that they are outside a hospital as the way the camera is positioned, it doesn't give away much background information however the next shot we see is an close up of the couple holding a baby scan photo and it is then made apparent that they have just picked up their baby scan and are now standing outside the hospital. The close up camera shot indicates the importance of the baby scan and how it is a significant prop in our story.

Claire and Wesley standing in their unborn babies nursery

A medium shot of the couple standing in the baby's nursery shows Wesley with his hand on Claire's baby bump and although you can see their lips moving and it is clear to the audience that they are having a conversation, we can not see or hear what they are saying. From the way that they are looking at each other and the fact that they are standing in their unborn baby's nursery suggests that they are talking about the excitement of the arrival of their baby. The importance of the medium shot is that you can see the location that their in. In the short film 'Birthday' there's is a scene of an elderly woman lying on her bed, from a medium shot you can see that she is her bedroom.

LS of female character in 'Birthday'

The final scene in 'Delusion' is a high angle shot of Claire lying on the floor as she has overdosed and died. The position she is laying in shows she has just fallen on the floor as her legs and arms are sprawled out from her. The short film 'Birthday' ends with an elderly woman over dosing and dying which is where we got the inspiration for our camera angles from. The end scene of ' Birthday' the elderly woman is shown                                                                                      lying dead on her bed with a high angle shot.

CU of female character dead in 'Birthday'

Sound:

Sound is a key element in a short film as it creates a mood that it wants the audience to feel and allows them to experience the emotions that characters in the film are feeling too. The use of diegetic and non-diegetic varies between the genre of the short film and dialogue is noticeably tended to be kept to a minimum. For the opening scene of the flashback we wanted the start of 'Anything can happen-Ellie Goulding" however due to Copyright reasons we couldn't find a version of this that we could use so we had to change our opening song. Instead we used parallel sound at the start of  our film which was a happy upbeat song played on the piano which fitted in well with what was happening at this moment in our film, this part was the flashback scenes before the couple had their baby therefore it's intentions were to make audience feel their happiness and excited emotions as they watched. We also used parallel music at the end of our film to fit with the sad, dark atmosphere when Claire over doses. We used the song "Youth- Daugther" which has a sad feel to it therefore it fits nicely with what's happening in the film at this moment in time and it makes the audience feel empathy towards Claire.

LS of Claire watching tv with 'Theo'

The short film 'Birthday' also uses parallel non diegetic music when the elderly woman has overdosed. It has the same effect as 'Delusion' when Claire dies as it allows the audience to feel empathy towards the elderly woman and her husband.

Birthday | Short film from smider on Vimeo.

We had some problems with the continuity of the diegetic sounds in some parts of our film where in some shots we had the tv on and in some we didn't. To solve this problem we used the background sound of a video from 'Peppa Pig' to put in the back ground so there wasn't random silent parts. By playing the 'Peppa pig' video in the background this solved our problem.
Mise en scene:

The eleven elements of mise on scene are:

• Lighting
• Colour
• Body language
• Facial expression
• Costume
• Hair
• Make-up
• Props
• Decor
• Setting  
• Composition

Lighting

Set up of filming and lighting in graveyard

As lighting is such an important element in a film we wanted to make sure we had he right levels of lighting in the right places in our short film. We knew we wanted to edit the scene in the nursery to make have high key levels of lighting and a high brightness as we wanted this part to be apparent that it was a flashback. We used the lights on its strongest setting and shone them on Claire ans Wesley as we filmed so the brightness of the scene was increased. In the scene where Claire and Wesley are standing in the graveyard we used the lights to create a dark, depressing atmosphere but the way we used the lights was to make it clear that Claire and Wesley were the main part in this scene therefore we wanted the lighting to put all attention on them.

Facial Expression

Facial expression is also another key element for a short film. As shown by various extreme close ups and medium shots throughout our film it allows the audience to empathise with the characters so they understand what they're truly feeling. Most of the close ups of facial expressions are of Claire as it shows the stages of her different emotions.

LS of Claire

 In the scene where Claire is watching tv and Wesley says he's going up stairs and to call him when dinners ready you can tell by Claire's face that she is annoyed a bit hurt by Wesley's reaction and this suggests that Claire is confused as to why he reacted in this manner.








Colour
As our short film was about the sensitive subject of losing a baby and the genre was drama we tried to make sure that the colours of the props and clothing wasn't too bright as we didn't want to suggest that the film had a happy theme. The colours the character of Claire wore throughout consisted of dark blues and greys and the colours the character of Wesley wore consisted of whites and blacks. Theo wears colours such as white and in the final scene he is wearing stripes. This is to make a statement and to clarify that he is a key element in our film and to make him stand out. In one of the final scenes where Wesley takes Claire to see their baby boy's grave, Wesley's costume consists of dark colours which helps set the mood for sadness and complements the dark atmosphere.

Body Language

Body language is a huge part of any film as it can help demonstrate how a character is feeling. The scene where Wesley is walking home from work, he stands tall with his shoulders back which suggests that he may have an important job and may feel inferior. In the first present day scene we see Claire watching TV with baby Theo. The way she is sitting suggests that she may be on edge or she may just be a naturally timid person, she sits on the sofa with her legs and arms crossed as if she is protecting herself.

LS of Claire and Theo watching TV

Costume

The costumes in 'Delusion' had to be chosen carefully as we needed to make sure that the types and styles of clothing Wesley and Claire wore fit with their age range and the situation they were in. The scene where Wesley is walking home from work he is wearing black trousers, white shirt and a tie which implies to the viewer that he may work in an office or have an important job he is coming home from. Claire's costume's were more significant as we had to make sure that what she was wearing fit in with what she was doing.









Hair

Considering the characters Wesley and Theo have hardly any hair, their hair styles weren't changed throughout our whole film. However when Claire starts going through her breakdown her hair and the effort put into making it look nice significantly decreases. In the end scene Claire's hair is greasy and isn't brush which compliments the fact that she is having a breakdown as it suggests that she hasn't been taking care of her appearance and isn't bothered by what she looks like.

MS of Claire showing her natural makeup

Makeup

Claire's makeup throughout the film is natural and subtle as we wanted it to be clear from the start that she is a considerably young mother who would rather spend time with her son than doing her makeup. The scene where Claire is about to overdose her makeup is smudged down her face to make it obvious she had been crying. We done this by wetting a tissue and dragging her mascara down from her eyes to go with the effect that she is going through a breakdown.                                      

CU of Claire's hair

                                                  Props

We used numerous props in our short film. The first prop we used was a photograph which we filmed from behind to make it look like Claire and Wesley were holding their baby scan. This was a significant prop as this was the first scene therefore we needed to make it apparent to the audience that the couple were expecting a baby. Another prop we used in 'Delusion' was the milk bottle which caused an uproar from Wesley resulting in him storming out the room.

                                                                             Décor

CU of Claire just before she overdoses and dies

  When setting up our scenes before we filmed we had to make sure we didn't have any irrelevant props in any of our shots. For example many times we had to move cushions or picture frames from the shots as these would have made no sense in our film and caused confusion for our audience. We tried to make our settings look as homely as possible by placing blankets and baby related items in our shots.

                                                                                                                                  Setting

Here is the sign at the entrance to the graveyard

This is the sign outside the hospital

We needed to use a few different settings in our film to help create the effect of our flashback and to show the different days. The settings that we used included, a house, outside a baby shop, the entrance of a hospital, outside the house and a graveyard.

Composition

Before filming our film we had to make sure that everything we wanted to be in the camera frame was exactly where we wanted it to be. We had to take our time on arranging cushions and in one of our shorts we felt like the coffee table was looking bare so we placed a candle just at the bottom of one of our shots. We felt like this helped make the setting appear more homely and was more convincing for the audience that a young couple did actually live here.

Editing and post production

 Flashbacks

In our film 'Delusion' we used jump cuts and flashbacks. This challenged the typical conventions for short films as usually you wouldn't find these techniques in a short film. The flashbacks were used to show Claire and Wesley's happiness whilst Claire is pregnant with their baby. We used the song 'Anything could happen' by Ellie Goulding and edited brighter to make it obvious to the audience that this was a flashback. Another short film that uses a flashback is the film 'I miss you' . This uses flashbacks to show the male characters reliving memories with his girlfriend.

Jump Cuts

We used jump cuts to create a dramatic edge in the scene where Claire is breaking down. We did this to make the audience feel sympathy towards her as from the camera shots you can really see the fear from Claire's facial expression.

Use of genre conventions

The genre of our film is social realism as it includes real life situation which was phantom pregnancy as this could happen to anyone. Our film also has an element of drama therefore it is a hybrid, a hybrid is a mix of genres.

 2.How effective is the combination of your main products and your ancillary tasks?

Here is our initial draft of our poster

The picture we used for our poster was of a baby's mobile above its cot. I feel that the shadow in the picture gives it an eery feel and suggests that our short film may have something supernatural or thrilling about it. We purposely didn't include any more of the cot than we needed to because we didn't want to give away if the baby is a boy or a girl as we wanted to create some uncertainty for the audience. We didn't include any characters on our poster as we wanted to create enigma for the audience as it would keep them guessing about what and who the film may be about. As we are a low budget film company we weren't able to create a trailer for 'Delusion' therefore our poster was a huge marketing appeal for us as this would be one of the main advertising roles. It took a lot of thought in what to have as our main picture for our poster. Our first idea was that we wanted half of the image missing to make it look like the image was there as well as not there. We took pictures of Theo and used photo shop to edit it to fade half of him.

Due to lots of research on short film poster I noticed that the title had to be the biggest and most striking font of the whole poster otherwise it wouldn't stand out. For example on the film poster for 'Cargo' the font is the first thing that catches the audience's eye as the title is written in big black font which is laid on a yellow background, making it easier to see. Underneath the title 'Cargo' there is a tag line, " The most precious of all". I felt like this tag line created an idea in the audience's head of what the film may be about however didn't give too much of the story, making us want to go and watch it. Tag lines are a key marketing strategy for any company as it increases the want of the audience to go and watch their film. When making our poster we realised through research that we wanted a tag line as this allowed the audience to guess what the film may be about. We wanted a tag line that wouldn't give away too much however gave the idea that someone in our film would be grieving. The tag line we eventually decided on was 'When grief distorts the truth.'

The review

The review has a completely different target audience to our poster in the sense that is found in the magazine 'Little White Lies'. Depending whether a film gets a good or bad rating all depends on the magazine editors opinion. A good review is an important factor when wanting to get good audience feedback on a film as your film is more likely to sell. The sophisticated lay out for a Little White Lies review is aimed at a middle and upper class demographic and the design is fairly challenging as it doesn't look like an ordinary film magazine.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Our intended audience for 'Delusion' were both males and females, aged 25-35. We chose this audience as I feel like the audience may be able to relate to the story a bit more as the characters Claire and Wesley fit into this age range. We used the point of views from both male (Wesley) and female (Claire) and we showed how they may both deal with a situation like this differently.

For our audience we asked a variety of different people a mix of questions and asked them to answer them honestly. We done this by emailing them the link to the video then they answered the questions on facebook messenger.
The questions we asked were:



Joe Allen

Charlotte Newnham





Alex Kendall-Tobias




















Due to having different opinions from our audience feedback I feel that if we were to make 'Delusion' again then we would maybe have more scenes with Theo in to make it more clear that Claire could see him and Wesley couldn't. There was only one scene where Claire could see him and Wesley couldn't however due to the camera shot, it wasn't emphasized that Theo was suddenly gone and I think this was a big mistake we made. I like the fact that each person who answered our questions said that they empathized with the young couple as this was one of our main intentions when making 'Delusion.

4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction, and research, planning and evaluation stages?

FINAL FILM - DELUSION

Film review

Our LWL review

Final film poster

Production company logo

Frances film poster

The pact- Frances

The pact

The image on the poster is of old fashioned brown wallpaper perhaps in someone's house, with a face and two hands appearing as if they are trying to push through out of the wall. The lighting at the top of the poster has high levels of lighting however the bottom of the poster is black underneath the face trying to push through. There are no actors names that appear on the screen however there is a tag line 'are you alone in your house?' this suggests that the movie might be about a house getting possessed by some of evil spirit. There are critics comments and a production block right at the bottom of the poster.

Media Language

The tag line and the face trying to push out of the wallpaper suggest that the movie is a thriller however this is the only character we see and nothing is revealed about the actors in this film.

Audience

The audience intended for this film could be 18 and above because it looks too scary for anyone under this age.

Genre

The genre of this film appears to be a horror because of the low levels of lighting and and the tag line.

Narrative

The only thing on the poster that suggests what it could be about is the tag line. The tag line suggests that the film is about a family who's house is getting haunted by an evil spirit.

The one I love- Frances

The one I love

The poster for this low budget independent short feature length film appears to be hand painted. The picture is of a middle aged man with brunette hair and glasses and a stern facial expression, He is standing in what looks like the ocean, there is a reflection of him in the water his reflection looks identical to him apart from the fact that his reflection doesn't have any glasses. There is a young woman in the water next to him, she looks a good 5 years younger than him and has long blonde hair and an evil expression on her face. Her reflection in the water seems to be identical to her. The title is written in block capital across the whole of the screen covering part of both characters faces and the names of the two main actors is written in small font underneath. At the top of the screen in a critics appraisal and the generic production block appears at the bottom of the screen.

Media language

The media language suggests that male character in the film has two identities as his reflection in the water is different to his actual face.

Representation

The representation of this movie might be love as it shows two characters, a male and a female and they both appear to be naked in the water.

Narrative

Not much is given away about the narrative on this poster however it might be about a young couple that fall in love.

Genre

The genre for this film may be a romantic comedy due to the setting that the two characters are in.

I lost my dream-Short film poster Frances

I lost my dream

The background of this poster looks likes it is hand painted with water colours to look like a sun set. The character is a male around the age of 18-20, he is looking up at the title 'I lost my dream' above his head as if he is looking up at the sky wistfully. The title font is made to look as if it is written in black marker pen. The character is foreign looking wearing a black tee-shirt, he has bright blue eyes with tanned skin and curly brunette hair. There are no characters names on this poster or a production block. The only other text apart from the title is who the film is made by and 'The true story of Moacir Zeledon'. There is no critic appraisal or age certificate either.

Media Language

The picture of the character is from an eye level shot, he is looking up at the sky, perhaps he is dreaming.

Representation

The poster represents masculinity and perhaps ethnicity as the character is inspired by someone with a foreign sounding name.

Audience

The poster appears to be targeted at an audience of adults due to the lack of information we get about this film from the poster.

Narrative

Not a lot is given away by the poster but we can guess this film is about a young man having a dream but for some reason he is unable to pursue this dream or it is in some way taken from him.

Genre

My guess is this film is a romance.

Sight-Short film poster Frances

Sight

A close up picture of a male's head fills the whole poster. This man could be the main character in the movie, he looks as if he is in character as he is staring straight ahead into the camera with a blank facial expression which gives the poster a slightly thrilling edge. The title 'sight' is placed over the male's forehead so it stands out. The title is written in block capitals and is a light blue/white colour. The male's eyes appear to have some kind of illusion inside which could have something to do with what the movie is about, perhaps this male character is blind and the reason he is blind is revealed in the movie. The character's forehead and the skin around his eyes is slightly blurred which makes his eyes stand out more, suggesting that his eyes are a key element in this film. The back ground behind the male's head is completely black which gives us no indication of where this film may be set.

There are no tag lines or critics ratings on the poster or even a production block. There is only who the film is by and names of two of the actors, this lack of information creates mystery on the poster. There isn't an age rating or a release date on it either.

Media language

The male character looks around mid thirty's, he has a high forehead and stubble on his face. Although we can't completely see, it appears he is wearing a grey blazer with a white shirt. He has dark circles under his eye which could be a key element in the film, perhaps its due to lack of sleep or a drug/alcohol problem. There is a light shining on the left hand side of the characters face but apart from this, the poster is dimly lit with low levels of lighting, this lack of light and colour suggests that the film may be a thriller.

Representation

This film represents masculinity and disability because the poster represents that the character on the poster is blind.

Audience

The intended audience for this film could be males 18-30 as the colour scheme and layout suggest that it is aimed for an audience who enjoy thrillers.

Narrative

Not much is given away about the storyline on the poster but we can guess that this movie is about a man who struggles or cant see at all.

Genre

Thriller or horror.

Evidence of filming

This is evidence of make-up whch is a key aspect of mise en scene. We previously researched and experimented how to use make-up to convey a tired, run down look and we put this into practise. Jess and Frances applied makeup onto Tash (Claire) to make her look like she is on the verge of a breakdown.

One of our scenes was filmed in Haywards Heath cemetery. We got permission before doing this. We waiting until it was dark and then went down to the cemetery to film one of our scenes, we wanted to be dark so that it created a more tense atmosphere and we wanted our audience to feel sympathy for the couple.

This is a picture of us filming the scene where Wesley and Claire are at Theo's grave, the start of Claire's breakdown. We used lights to enhance the significance of the grave stone as it is a key prop in this scene.

Experimating with jump cuts

In our short film we will be using the continutinty editing technique jump cuts. A jump cut is a cut in film editing in which two sequential shots of the same subject are taken from camera positions that vary only slightly. This type of edit gives the effect of jumping forwards in time. We will be using jump cuts in our short film to emphasise Claire's breakdown as the jumpcuts will signify her emotions. We practiced doing this so then when we start making our short film, it will be much more efficient when making this effect.

These are some examples of jump cuts:

Animatic with voiceover

Animatic

Audience

The audience range our short film is intended for is adults of around 25-35 and middle class as they could relate to the story line maybe from personal experience so their more likely to want to watch it. It is not aimed at children under the age of 18 as I feel that they wouldn't quite understand what phantom pregnancy is and they may not get that the beginning is a flashback and not present day. Our short film would ideally be screened at a low budget cinema as it is a low budget film.

Narrative

The structure of our short film is non-linear as the film starts with two lots of flash backs therefore the story isn't told in chronological order.

Todorov's theory:

• Equilibrium - This is when Wesley and Claire are standing in their unborn baby's nursery talking excitedly about The being born.
• Disruption - This is when Theo dies and the couple are heartbroken.
• Confrontation -This is when Claire thinks that Theo is sill alive and keeps seeing him everywhere.
• Resolution - This is when Wesley takes Claire to see Theo's headstone in the cemetery and explains to her that he is dead and not coming back.
• New Equilibrium established - this is when Claire decides she can't cope with the loss of her baby so she overdoses on pills and dies.

The short film 'Flashback' has a similar structure to our short film as it has a non-linear structure and it begins with a flash back  just like ours.

Health and safety

As we are using a 4 month old baby in our short film we need to be very careful when filming, for example no loud noises around the baby and keeping our eye on him at all times.

Other risks that could occur are being careful when using the tripod as it may be a tripping hazard.

If we are filming any of our short film near of in the road then each member of our group needs to be careful of any cars driving in the road.

Makeup

Here I experimented with the makeup for the character of Claire where she is going down hill due to her phantom pregnancy. She is tired and has huge bags under her eyes because of this.

Rejected ideas

 Rejected story idea

A story idea that we rejected was that the couple have a baby and it becomes too much for them as they're young, resulting in an abusive relationship. The father starts to resent the mother and baby and hits her, which ends with the mum overdosing and dying.

Synopsis

Synopsis 

 

Our short film is about a young couple trying to cope with the loss of their baby. Claire (mother) suffers from phantom pregnancy which means that she believes her baby is still alive and still sees him. For example, in our film there will be a variety of shots where Theo (the baby) is present in Claires eyes however we will have a POV shot from Wesley's (dad) perspective and the baby won't be there. As a result of Claire's inability to cope with the loss of Theo, she overdoses and dies. Our short film will begin with a flashback of Claire and Wesley when Claire is pregnant, where they are happy and looking at baby clothes in the nursery. Claire's hallucinations causes strain on their relationship as Wesley doesn't understand her condition and Claire is constantly trying to convince Wesley that Theo is still alive. This drives Wesley to take Claire to the graveyard and show her Theo's grave, which triggers her overdose.